Lockdown will affect internal migration trends of labourers: Experts

NEW DELHI: In the wake of the lockdown imposed due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic across India, a number of activities of daily lives of people have been affected. Most affected amongst them is that of labour. The lockdown has forced migrant labourers to return to their hometowns or villages. However, according to Prof S Irudaya Rajan, one of India’s foremost experts in population studies, this will have a profound effect on the return of the migrant workers whenever the lockdown is called-off.

He says that due to the lockdown, thousands of migrants have been left stranded on the streets across India with no jobs, income, food or a place to live. This has forced them to take to the highways and walk hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes. This, in turn, says Prof Rajan, creates a panic among the workers and instils a sense of fear in travelling long distances in search of work.

Chinmay Tumbe, Professor of Economics at Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Ahmedabad, says that this causes a ‘destination shift’. Workers, who earlier had no problems in travelling hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres in search of work, will now prefer to move only to neighbouring towns and cities and eke out every opportunity they find there. Meanwhile, industrial centres like Gurugram, Surat and Tiruppur will face a shortage of migrant labours which will act as an obstruction for industries trying to ease out of the recession. Tumbe suggests that central and state governments must be ready with solutions to tackle the obvious shortage in availability of workers in the coming months.